We have a giant glass jar in our bedroom. Every night we throw our loose change in it and hope the kids don’t steal it to put in their piggy banks. We also started putting all the money that was part of the grocery budget but wasn’t actually spent in the jar. We did the same with a few other variable cost expenses.

Before Christmas, we decided that we wanted to replace our broken video camera. I wanted to go digital this time to make video editing a little easier. The camera we ended up deciding on cost around $400. We briefly talked about whether to use the checking account or the credit card and then pay it off right away.

Then, we decided to use whatever money was in the jar and then use our checking account for the rest. The jar had grown to over $300 without us really noticing. Talk about a nice little surprise.

I took the cash into Best Buy. They had to have two people count the money because of how many singles and five dollar bills we had.

We stopped adding to the jar over the holidays but are getting ready to start up again soon. In addition to being able to buy ourselves a few nice medium to large expense items a year, it also provides a good incentive to try and stay under budget on some of those variable expense things like groceries and household items.

 

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